


Black Goat's Egg

by diamondgore



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Canon Fix-It, Dubious Ethics, Gen, Other, Sharp focus shift, Shopping, one and a half quentins, the phoenix force being inappropriately used
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-08-06 10:56:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16386545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diamondgore/pseuds/diamondgore
Summary: To give birth to something, you've gotta destroy the world right before your eyes.





	1. White Swan Resurfaced

**Author's Note:**

> I love the Cuckoos. I think they deserve more fics. This fic, granted, starts off with Quentin and then shifts into the Cuckoos. 
> 
> I wrote this originally to set up another fic, but it's apparent that the idea of the Phoenix Force reviving the Cuckoos deserves more than a quick drabble. I also decided to ignore all of the newest run of X-23, considering I don't like the idea that Esme is inherently evil. 
> 
> The title and the description are from _Tokyo Ghoul_ since I thought they fit this story. Credit's due where it's due yo! 
> 
> *edit: I fixed up some grammar and added a few things.

Quentin shouldn’t have trusted himself. So what if he was from the future? Quentin only managed to disappoint people, and if there was something that had stayed consistent in the timelines that he had viewed, it was the fact that he never really stopped being an asshole. He sat in the school graveyard-- _how morbid!--_  and kicked at the dirt, wondering why he even wasted his time striking a deal with that idiot.

He was deeply disappointed in the fact that he would have to think of another way to make sure his plan didn’t fall through. He wanted to make amends but he wasn’t sure how to do it now that his older self managed to be a no-show. He wished he could send a big ‘fuck you’ to him, considering he had added more to his disappointment in the world. If Quentin went dark Phoenix it would be his older-self’s fault, and his olderself would rue the day he left him behind.

“Stop pouting would you? Time travel isn’t that accurate and I still haven’t gotten the hang of it.”

Quentin looked up, and saw that a man engulfed in cosmic flame standing before him. His hair bright pink, matching his own. It was himself, although a few decades his senior. Quentin couldn’t deny that he was shocked to see that he actually showed up, and didn’t leave it as a last minute thing as he currently would.

“I didn’t really expect you to show up. I kinda—”

“I know. I can read minds, and yours is still leaking out of your ears. Haven’t you talked with anyone about maybe putting it some mental blocks? Or using a blocker collar?”

Quentin scrunched up his nose. “Can we leave the ‘sage advice’ for later? We’re running on a tight schedule here.” He pushed himself off of the tombstone that he was sitting on, and landed with a soft thud on his feet.

“You do realize who you’re talking too, hm…?” The older,  _debatably,_   more mature, version of Quentin followed his younger counterpart down the gravel pathway. “The Phoenix doesn’t like being talked down to.”

“I’m not talking to her, though, I’m criticizing you.”

“You’ve always been too harsh on yourself, let’s try something new this time and not judge each other.” The Phoenix host shrugged, and then took a moment to really look around him. It had been a while since there were so few graves in the graveyard. He couldn’t believe that he was back to the time where was twenty, and his biggest concern was not being taken back into solitary confinement. “Let’s take it easy, considering we both know each other.”

“What are we trying to do here anyway?” He asked, finally. “You never gave me the specifics.”

“You can read my mind, can’t you?”

“Yes, but I want you to say it outloud. Sometimes ideas are just good in theory, and with you, you have many ideas, but only a handful of them are good.” He responded to his younger self with _caution_ more than anything. He was toying with the laws of nature—well at the very least the laws that the humans considered ethical.

Both of them stopped at a matching set of graves. They were only recently redone. They had two rose bushes growing on top of them, wrapping around the tombstones.

The names could be clearly read: Sophie Cuckoo, and Esme Cuckoo. The two men stared at the graves for a few moments, only the one lacking the Phoenix being overtaken with guilt.

While it was not his fault Sophie and Esme died, it sure did feel like it was. He never forced any of them to take the kick, but he was the one who pushed Sophie to the deep end when it came to the riots. Perhaps if he wasn’t such a prick to her back then, this would all be avoided. That was _five years ago_ , and he still hadn’t learned how to turn back time. He wouldn’t be very good at it anyway, he’d be too caught up in the specifics. He’s always wanted to know more about it, rather than just knowing he could.

He could only hope the Phoenix would take pity on his cause. His olderself was only partially Quentin, most of his personality burnt away by the fire. He was no longer the passion of childhood and misdirected teenage angst, he was logical and concise. However, the part of him that he hadn’t given up came out in quips and half-thought wit.

“Tell me what you want, Quire.” His olderself said once more. He put a gloved hand onto Quentin’s shoulder. “What is it that you desire?”

This was on many levels, to say the least, wrong. He was disrupting so many rules just by bringing back his olderself from the future, or an another dimension, whatever. He knew that what he would do could fracture the future in many ways—but considering he had killed a version of himself where he went Dark Phoenix, it couldn’t be much worse than that.

There are very few things more traumatizing than witnessing your own death.

It was selfish, the reasons that he wanted both Sophie and Esme back. But it wasn’t for the glory of it all, it was because he was tired of living with the guilt and with the heaviness that came with the blame of their deaths. He had overheard the Cuckoos’ mind by accident. Their hivemind was just so loud sometimes, that he accidentally wandered into their minds. They never seemed to notice or when they did, they left him there. They thought about their lost sisters, they never wanted Quentin to live it down.

It was both unfair—but fair. They were suffering, they couldn’t feel, due to their diamond hearts, but they had to grieve the loss of their sisters somehow. They just physically could not, so Sophie and Esme lingered in their minds. Like porcelain dolls, untouchable and fragile. They were objects to be remembered, and nothing more.

He was a child back then, and he didn’t understand why Sophie wouldn’t want to be brought back to life, but perhaps now, that he was doing it for a reason that wasn’t love—it would all be alright.

“I want to revive Sophie and Esme Cuckoo. Their deaths were unfair, and unjust.”

“And what makes you think that? Are you God, Quentin? How can you say their deaths are unjust?” The Phoenix spoke through its host, tangling it’s flame-feathers with Quentin’s mind and thoughts. He was so young and so childish.  

“I know enough about the Phoenix to make one assumption: If you thought their deaths were just you wouldn’t have shown up. Am I wrong?” He asked, feeling the interference of the feathers in his mind. They were like a cloud in his judgment.

“You are right.” The Phoenix said, deep inside the mind of the young Quentin Quire. “But you cannot rid of the guilt that the years have piled upon you. For that you need years of introspection, you must forgive yourself.”

“The guilt—that is something I’ll get rid of with time. Hnnf—” The Phoenix was scrambling the young man’s brain now, digging deep to make sure that the judgment call was correct. The resurrection of the Cuckoos, would come from selfishness, but the Phoenix needed to know that the sickness he had carried inside him was gone.

“Ha—What are you doing?” Quentin asked, dropping to the ground. His head was on fire, he could just die from the heat.

“Don’t you have what you need already?” Quentin gripped the sides of his head. Everything inside him was so warm. He felt like his gray matter might come leaking out of his nose. The Phoenix was _boiling_ his brain, and for what he thought was no good reason.

All the Phoenix found was the sadness that Quentin always carried with him. He’d rid himself of that ‘sickness’: the need to fit in. He’d gotten rid of the useless teenage angst. So the Phoenix had made a right call in her judgment.

Reanimating the Cuckoos would end up aiding the Phoenix rather than harming her. It would be what she needed. They were all good hosts, but especially Sophie Cuckoo. She was by far the most heroic of all the Cuckoos, even in her death, The Phoenix could feel it in her memories that Quentin had of her. Sophie would be the most promising of all of them, as she was the one with the capacity greatest for kindness, but also the one with greatest for evil.

The Phoenix removed her feathers from the depth of Quentin’s brain, causing him to drop to the floor, face first. He was put to sleep. It was for many reasons, however it was mostly out of kindness, She knew the shame that Quentin carried, and he would not be able to take the emotions of seeing his first love, an emotion so delicate, crawl out of her grave. He would not want to see either of the Cuckoos naked, reborn from the eternal flames of the Phoenix.

Using the body of its host, the Phoenix dug open the grave with his hands. It took sometime to dig everything up. Who knew that grave robbing would be this hard? The Cuckoos were nothing more than their nanotech bones now, but the Phoenix would make them mutants again. She would make them something less than weapons that men could gawk at and consume-- she would make them feel and love. They _deserved_ that. The Phoenix is not cruel. 

The Phoenix had tasted human emotion before, and its rawness had her obsessed with its passion. It was the only thing that burned stronger than Phoenix herself.  

The Phoenix Host crawled out of the graves he had dug up, and then stood in between them. All of these things were formalities, due to the fact that the Phoenix could do whatever she pleased at a blink of an eye. A minute was nothing to humans, but to her? It was more than insignificant.

Bright orange flames engulfed both of the graves, lifting the decayed nano-skeleton of the deceased Cuckoos. They were surrounded by life-giving fire, and slowly their skin was being built up around them, layers of cells brought back to life. They were reanimated, and their lungs were being burnt by the fresh air.

For the sake of everyone, involved, including Quentin’s, the Phoenix had hidden him from the Cuckoos. Hiding him from the public eye, would be the kindest thing the Phoenix could do for him and save him from shame.

“Esme, Sophie.” The Phoenix placed both of the Cuckoos on the ground. They couldn’t stand just yet, so they sat in the dirt. She had dressed them both in dresses of white flowing silk, something modern and tasteful. “Welcome back.” A friendly voice, the Phoenix had pitched her voice to sound like Emma's. 

Both of the Cuckoos were dazed. They felt so much all at once, perhaps it came with the whole _being reborn_ thing, but they were both crying, for no good reasons, just tears flowing down their faces. The did not recognize who the Phoenix’s current host was. But, Sophie would have probably caught onto him faster than her sister.

Quentin had grown _so_ much, in so many different ways since his silly riot days.

Sophie looked at her hands, and then touched her face. She was back alive, and this time there were no strings attached. The oxygen felt odd in her lungs, the scent of pine was something foreign. Esme was holding her legs to her chest, she felt so small in the grand scheme things. It was a way to make sure she was really alive. 

“The decision to bring you both back, was a hard one. But I believe that my judgment is correct. It is never wrong, and you two have great potential ahead of you.” The Phoenix spread its wings, for a moment dissolving her physical host, and assuming the flames, and then wrapped them against Sophie and Esme, pulling them into something akin to a hug. “Do not waste your lives, for you have already lost so much time.”

Her flames do not melt the Cuckoos. 

She let go of the duo, and then helped them off the ground. “Can you hear your sisters? Or is the hivemind severed from the both of you? If it is, then I can establish it.”

Sophie gripped her head, and heard the chatter of her sisters. It had been too long since she had last heard their annoying voices. “I….I can. What about you Esme?” She asked softly, looking at her sister.

It took a moment for Esme to allow herself to hear the excited, elated, horrified thoughts of her sisters. Esme hadn’t felt in so long, her legs felt week, and she dropped to the floor. “We’re alive--we’re actually alive.”

Sophie knelt down beside her, and scooped her into a hug. She wanted to never let go of her sibling in the fear that she was going to dissolve into death again. Sophie had been revived twice before, but this time, she was finally ready to be alive. Her arms tightly hugged Esme and she cried into her shoulder.

“Use this time, on this Earth, wisely, my _cygnets_. This Earth is merely an egg, and you must break it's shell in order to fulfill your destiny.” The warning was something malevolent, but the Cuckoos couldn’t comprehend what the Phoenix was saying. It was something that they couldn’t decode at the moment. Many reasons could have contributed to this but it was mostly due to the fact that the Phoenix Host was erasing their memories of the encounter as it happened. He was selecting what he wanted them to remember. No one would know about the appearance of the Phoenix, and Quentin Quire would forget about his wish to bring back the Cuckoos.

Esme and Sophie were still reeling from the fact that they were in fact alive again, at the mercy of the Phoenix, but it was obvious that she did not mean any harm this time, or at least for the time being. The Phoenix never means harm. What she had done was for her host, so that she would stay bonded to him longer. Sophie and Esme’s revival was odd to witness, as the Phoenix host used his ability to let them forget what had just happened, they should not carry those thoughts of worry with them.

Should the Phoenix need them again, she would return for them. And Phoenix always came back. 

Sophie and Esme did not know who revived them, not anymore.

It was apparent that the shock of the two deceased Cuckoos being revived awakened something in the rest of the hivemind. They were all overwhelmed with emotions to counteract the coldness that they had felt throughout the years when their sisters were missing. Every thought was racing, and the trio was calling out to their missing parts. They needed to reunite.

They were finally whole. _They were five-in-one again_.

The Phoenix, having accomplished her job, had began to leave the Cuckoos behind, already blending into the background blocking herself from the Hivemind. Their sisters would take care of them. She took the shape of her host again, and use his telekinetic manipulation to carry the younger version of herself out of the scene. He was still hidden with mental blocks from the Cuckoos. 

Five-in-One deserved to be together again, and share a moment that was not tainted by anyone else.

Esme, and Sophie stayed in each other arms, until the other Cuckoos showed up. Celeste, Phoebe and Mindee were practically running at their top speed towards their previously dead sisters. They had to make sure that they weren’t fakes. The trio had tried so often to reunite with them, there were too many failed attempts, but they couldn’t resist checking if this one was real. Any chance to be with them was never a waste.

They had their eyes still wide with disbelief despite the physical sensation of being able to hold their sisters in their arms. Celeste, Phoebe and Mindee were unable to cry, but if they could, they would have tears streaming down their face as they held their long lost sisters. Five-in-One all collected in a hug.

They would only share this moment of sisterly solidarity for a few moments before they would start bickering over silly things again.

  
  
  
  
  



	2. The Magpie Speaks.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sophie's readjusting to her newfound life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rewrote this a couple of times, because I knew none of it made sense. So I decided for more of a casual chapter with Sophie as the lead. I'll get to Esme in the next chapter, but I wanted her to act more like the impulsive young adult she should be rather than streamline the story. Sorry this took so long!

No one seemed to care about the Cuckoos were back to being five in one. It was the last thing on everyone’s minds, especially considering there were bigger problems at hand. Most of them caused by other mutants, especially the Hell Fire club. No one really knew if they were allies or enemies at this point. Of course, this didn’t mean that the people at the Institute would let Esme and Sophie off the hook. There were protocols to this type of things, or at least something akin to it that Hank had come up with.

 

Esme had gone first, she was the easier Cuckoo to deal with. She had always been the one that was the most troublesome, but this time, she didn’t want to leave this life she’d been given again. It was almost like she was shocked into wanting to be a better person. Not a **good** person, just someone who was less shitty and not hell-bent on taking over her sister’s minds. She got the clean bill of health, and was sent off to deal with Kitty and Rachel.

 

Rachel had done a preliminary scan on the Cuckoos, to make sure that they weren’t enemies. She didn’t seem to find anything out of the blue, and instead was confused at the large five-year gap in their memory. Rachel didn’t even find mental blocks or shields, which was odd, considering that their sisters had some of the strongest ones she'd ever seen. Their minds were surprisingly crisp and clean, and they’d incorporated back into the Hivemind neatly.

 

Sophie was in Dr. Mccoy’s lab, sitting on the cold-steel table waiting for him to examine her. He had asked her to change into something more comfortable, and she had to read his mind to make sure he wasn’t a pervert. She knew that this was what most patients wore, but it seemed too revealing for her tastes with the open back. Everything felt too raw and in the open.

 

What she learned was that he was indeed, not a pervert, his thoughts were . Perhaps, she delved too deeply into his mind and found out about that he was also gay and in a lot more pain that she'd ever anticipated Hank to be in.  It was too much information, stinging the back of her head slightly, but it put her at ease, knowing that. Regardless, Hank would never do anything to her that would harm her, he didn’t have it him to hurt children. She felt bad for invading his mind, but she was simply adjusting to a world she couldn’t recognize, there were too many blanks and she was trying to fill them in.

 

There was something buzzing in the background of her mind. An unknown signal.

 

She wanted to keep her mind off the examination at hand, and kept her hands occupied by picking her nails,  and her mind occupied with thoughts of dying and trimming her hair, considering it had been overgrown due to the fact that she’d been dead for a little while.

 

She didn’t want to be here, it reminded her of Sublime’s labs, especially with the ominous green-test tubes that she can see down the hall. She couldn’t tell what was in them, but part of her didn’t want to know. Hank had done the basic tests at this point: he had drew blood from her and took her blood pressure.

 

It was weird, but she missed the fact that she could bleed, the fact that there was a pulse. It was a sign that she was indeed alive.

 

Right now, Hank was more concerned with how her brain was functioning, considering that there was nothing concerning on her lab reports. So he had been pressing electrodes into her long blond hair with his fuzzy blue hands. Even for a man with claws, he had a dexterity that was denied from most people.

 

“Sophie, it would benefit both of our causes if you cooperate.” Hank said, while adjusting the electrodes. Sophie wasn’t fidgeting but she was resisting Hank’s tugs and his hands in her hair. She’d also rejected the needles at first, and it took him a good while to convince her to let him draw blood. Sophie shut her eyes tightly, and Hank knew she was afraid and frustrated. She wanted to leave and talk to her sisters and all the friends she’d left behind, if they could even remember her.

 

“I know that, Dr. McCoy.” She sighed. She heard Hank shuffle to the EEG machine, and then fumble with the controls. Two flipped switches and a loud buzz confirmed that it was on. “Do you want me relaxed?”

 

It was out of character, to Sophie at the very least that no one found it of any concern, when this usually meant a visit from the Phoenix or some kind of really mad doctor. Everyone wanted to blame the Phoenix, but no one had any memory of it, and it wasn’t like the Phoenix to manipulate memories. And last time they were contacted by Thor, which was a day ago for Hank, he had confirmed that he had been keeping his eyes on the Phoenix and that it hadn’t moved from her sight. They could have been transferred in from another timeline, but none of their memories were odd. They could be clones, considering that their bodies were missing from their graves, but what purpose would taking their bodies be, considering their souls were in the Astral plane.

 

In the back of Hank’s mind, he was running in circles trying to justify their emergence, but nothing added up. Hell, this didn’t even seem like a Cuckoo-centric ploy, it was too well planned out, even for smart girls like them. The circumstances of the Cuckoos’ existence was odd, but when was it ever not?

 

“Dr. McCoy, why is no one worried that Esme and I are back?” She asked. Hank wanted her to talk, so it was good she was making conversation.

 

There was a surge of activity on the machine. It was something that Hank had seen before, but only from a few people with secondary mutations. Emma’s brain had similar readings when she gained her diamond form, and so did he Three-in-Ones. Perhaps Sophie was finally gaining her diamond form, but the readings were too strong for even that.

 

“These things happen often. More often than anyone would like. We’ve had Rachel search your mind and comb it thoroughly, we even did it while you girls were resting. Jean even did a secondary scan. So there’s nothing to worry about, unless you want to give me a reason to worry. Be careful though I might suffer from a heart attack.” Hank laughed, distracting himself from the readings on the screen.

 

Sophie had nothing to say. She wasn’t sure why she was back, and couldn’t think of any reason why anyone would want to revive her. Part of her wished she stayed dead, so that she wouldn’t have to deal with the discomfort of physical existence.

 

Sophie only remembered her sisters from being brought to life. She only remembered being connected to her sisters again….and she can remember a vague pinkness and warmth. Something dissociated from the situation.

 

“Where’s miss Frost?” She asked, breaking the silence. She wasn’t afraid to demand attention, true to her genetic blueprint, but didn’t feel the need to do anything but coax it out of Hank. “Did she leave the school?”

 

Sophie would be _damned_ no matter the answer he gave her.

 

“Yes.” He answered. He was more so focused on the EEG scans than the state of almost despair Sophie was in. “A lot has happened since you were gone.”

 

The EEG Hank was studying didn’t make any sense. They were more chaotic than anything he’d ever seen before, especially from the likes of a telepath. Not even Jean at with all the darkest contained inside of her had the same choice readings. He’d been told that Sophie was the strongest Cuckoo, but that did not account from the chaos he was seeing.

 

She could read his mind, but Hank hoped she wasn’t because he wouldn’t be able to answer the questions about her scans.

 

Sophie frowned. She couldn’t believe Emma left! It wasn’t like her to leave children behind. But the Cuckoos were no longer kids, they were functional adults. Physically, Sophie was an adult, but she felt emotionally stunted, but that was most mutants.  

 

“I know. I’ve transversed the minds of my sisters over the past few days. A lot has happened to us. I wish I could have been there, rather than experience it through the eyes of someone else.” Sophie sighed, how upsetting, knowing she’d lost five years with her sisters. “How’s Esme? Are there any abnormalities with her?”

 

“Other than being alive, and the general lack of manners, she’s fine.”

 

“Why was she sent out to the main office then? Couldn’t she have gone back to my sisters?” Being alive was scary and hard to transverse, but all she wanted was to make sure her sisters wouldn’t get hurt.

 

“You have a lot of questions, don’t you? I like that. But I’m afraid that it’s simply protocol.” Hank got up and went to the bookcase, to grab a leather bound book. “Since you and Esme are back we’re working on getting you back on public systems. We’re enrolling you back into the school, and setting up your records. All the boring clerk stuff. It’s just how we do things for all the zombies on campus.”

 

“Does it happen that often?” She asked, finally opening her eyes and twisting around to see where Hank was.

 

“Hank looked at her from the top of his rimless glasses. “Do you really need me to answer that Miss Sophie? Half of our staff was deceased at some point.”

 

Sophie wasn’t alarmed, but she was disappointed that her status wasn’t so special. “I see.” She paused, and then put her legs on the metal table so that she could turn her body completely towards Hank. “Your face shows confusion. Is there something wrong with me?”

 

Hank shook his head. “Not wrong.” A half-lie. “Your brain activity is just odd. I’m not sure how to decode it. I don’t want to alarm you.”

 

“You’re worried, Dr. McCoy.”

 

“As always. You are Emma’s treasure, she is currently not available, so I must worry for her. I hope you understand.”

 

Sophie’s heart felt warm when Hank called her ‘treasure’. It was a type of affection she hadn’t received in a while. “You haven’t told me where she is.”

 

“What do you want me to tell you? I do have no idea where she is. Other than the occasional letter she sends, I have no contact with her.” Hank shrugged, closing his book and then placing it back into the bookcase. “I’m sorry, Sophie. But I’m sure she’ll come back soon.”

 

“Other than my odd brain activity, is there anything wrong with me?” Sophie was dejected, and wanted to leave the lab. But she wasn’t going to break any protocol so she could feel sad about Emma, _her mother_ , leaving her, she was too cold for that. Emma didn’t even know she was alive, so her sadness should not be this disproportionate.

 

“Not really. I do not have a course of treatment for your brain activity, but I suggest a high fat diet over the next few days so that you’d be able to say fueled.”

 

“Am I ‘cleared’ now?” Sophie asked, puting it between air quotes. She knew there were still more steps before Hank would give her the clean bill of health, but there was nothing more she could do now.

 

Hank nodded. “Yes, let me unhook you, then you can leave.” He walked back over to the table and began removing the electrodes form her hair. It took ten minutes, and a few wipes to remove the gel from her hair. Sophie stayed perfectly still, so that he could clean her up. She couldn’t shake of hurt that she got from Emma abdonding the school, but she had to have her reasons.

 

Once Hank had removed the electrodes, he handed her a set of brochures, the standards that they made parents and new students read. Sophie just smiled curtly, took them and then walked out of the room, hoping to go take a shower or something so that she could get all the gel out of her hair.

 

There was nothing that she would gain from the brochures, but fumbled with them for a moment once she was outside the lab, skimming through the backs of them. She didn’t really want to read them, but a quick look through wouldn’t hurt her.

 

She then decided to walk through the completely unfamiliar halls of the school. There was something inside her that made her uncertain about how she should feel about everything. It seemed wrong, that she was here again, and that Emma was not. But she wasn’t allowed to think about it for too long, she forgot that ‘privacy’ and ‘alone time’ were words that were foreign to the student body.

 

Walking down the somewhat crowded there was one student that had caught her eye. Emma Frost’s previous star student, Julian Keller, standing alone by one of the paintings on the wall. The painting was one of the older, defunct teams, she couldn’t tell which.

 

Julian wasn’t paying attention to the world around him, instead more focused on his hands. He seemed be cleaning them, removing the dirt from underneath his faux-metal fingernails. Sophie decided to approach him, and listen to what he had to say.

 

“Keller.” She said, with only half the coolness she wanted.

 

“Sophie!” He tried to act surprised seeing her, but gossip ran through the school like it was the plague. You couldn’t escape it even if you tired. However, the suddenness of the interaction made him almost drop his hands. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

 

“I hope you haven’t.” She leaned against the wall next to him. “What are you doing?” Conversation is hard, a delicate thing, and Sophie felt like she was ripping it apart with her teeth.

 

“Cleaning my nails. Glob and Stanos had a fight-clubesque moment.” Julian yawned. “I had to step in and stop them. Ended up face first in the grass, so I decided to leave.”

 

Sophie saw the grass stains on his shirt and the knees of his pants were slightly frayed from being dragged against the grass outside. His palms were stained with dirt and his face was slightly filthy, but he had cleaned most of it out his face.

 

“You’re not gonna take a shower?” She asked, wanting to sneer at him instead.

 

“In a little bit. I haven’t done any of my laundry, and I don’t want to get yelled at for wearing casual clothes in school.” Julian said. “Mr. Drake has been a hardass recently, especially after his break up with his boyfriend.”

 

“So why not leave?” Sophie was impulsive, this was something built into her since her creation. She had only been alive for a few days but she had so desperately wanted to leave the school; it was suffocating her. However, she also wanted to get her hair cut and dyed like her sisters did.

 

Julian considered her offer for a moment. She was a Cuckoo, and therefore, one of the more untouchable members of the school due to her relation to Emma more than anything, so of course she was inciting. She seemed more genuine than her sisters in wanting to spend time with him, even if she was just desperate for normal human interaction. He put his hands on his hips. “Where are you thinking of going?”  

 

“Anywhere but here really.” She knew at some level, this was probably wrong and would worry almost all the adults at the school. She gave Julian something akin to a smile, lopsided but sincere in the faintness of the excitement she could feel in her heart.

 

Out of everyone in the school, Julian was the only one that was ready to start some trouble, even if it was a small misdemeanor. Sophie wasn’t particularly interested in the ‘bad guy’ persona he boasted, however Julian was a trustworthy man, if Emma had trained him. It meant that they both had the same thinking process.

 

“There’s a mall in Queens, if you want to go.” Julian could drive, and if he really needed, he could hotwire a car. However, he hoped that Sophie was on the same wavelength as him, and that they didn’t really need to go that far to leave the school. "There's a few cool shops there." He replied with a certain calmness. 

 

“Why go that far when Fifth Ave is just down the street?” She asked, knowing that Julian, despite it all, was still loaded, it was the only thing his mind was bragging about. He had money, and he enjoyed spending it and flaunting it. If she was going to leave the school and possibly get in trouble, it wasn’t going to be a shoddy mall. Emma hadn’t raised her that way.

 

Julian shot her a smile. “Let me get changed and then we can leave.”

 

He extended his metal hand so that they could shake on it, and Sophie took it to make the deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on tumblr [@diamondsynth](http://diamondsynth.tumblr.com/), hit me up!


	3. A Peacock Parades.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Esme makes a deal with Kitty Pryde.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said, I'm going to take a more casual route with this story. I'm still unsure of my characterization of Megan, and Kitty, so I'll keep refining them as the chapters go on. Please leave me feedback! 
> 
> ( i've also edited the first chapter so that it would fit tonally with this chapter 2 & 3 ! ) 
> 
> Oh, I'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/goremeat) now too!

 

As of recently, Kitty Pryde had been having one of the worst years of her life. Her patience was wearing thin, and she was at wits end. Nothing in her life was really going the way she would like it to go, and having Esme Cuckoo sitting in her office, did nothing to make her think that taking the job as headmaster was the right call.

 

Three Cuckoos caused nightmarish situations, she did not forget the horror movie situation on Utopia, Kitty did not want to think about how much more trouble they’d get into now that they had enough members to start their own girlband. She pressed a pen to her lips after signing in the last piece of paper work to make Esme an official student.

 

“You’re not happy I’m here.” Esme said, leaning into her chair. Out of all of the Cuckoos, she was the one that was the most rambunctious, and the one that was most likely to cause trouble.

 

“I’m not happy that you’re reading my mind.” Kitty responded, forgetting that Esme was not as emotionally stunted as half of the student body. She knew how to read Kitty’s body language, and the fact that she was scowling made it easy to assess discomfort.

 

“Miss Pryde, I’m not my mother.” Esme knew there was a history of hostility between her mother and Kitty. She didn’t mention it, or bring it up, but Esme knew that was one of the reason as to why Kitty was so hostile with her attitude. She was harmed once before, it would be foolish to trust Esme without hesitation. “I’m not trying to stir something up, you can ask Miss Grey to read my mind again if you’d like.”

 

Kitty leaned back into her leather chair, a gift from Hank. She sighed out loud and placed the pen on the table, her mind was somewhere else not paying attention. She mulled over something in her head and then turned her attention back to Esme, who had now crossed her legs underneath her. She was sitting like a child.

 

Kitty wanted to smile, but she could not. Esme was different from the other students in the Institute: she was good at reading the scene, asking the right questions. If she was trained correctly, she had great potential, potential to _do what,_ although, was up for grabs. Esme was a wild card, she did what she wanted when she wanted. To her, everything was Godless.

 

“May I ask what you’re thinking?”

 

“You talk a lot. The Frost clan usually prefers to keep to themselves.”

 

“I haven’t been able to talk in a little while.” Esme replied with her lips upturned. “I hope you understand.” She was as cocky as Emma was, but she lacked the edge and sharpness Emma had in her voice.

 

“Are you really not reading my mind, Esme?”

 

“No need to. Why would you hide anything from me?” She showed her teeth to Kitty, grinning widely.

 

Kitty’s body language betrayed her, shifting uncomfortably while concentrating on Esme’s grin. Kitty had only known a little bit of what Esme was capable of doing, and how she had it in her to kill someone. While usually she was cool and calm when talking to her students, Esme was challenging her. Sophie did none of this. Sophie was much kinder than Esme, but everyone knew that.

 

Esme just never saw the fun in that. That being said, she wasn’t actively trying to cause trouble, without testing the environment first. She wasn’t trying to be evil, there was much more to be gained in being a slight nuisance to everyone. There was no reason to be the strongest of all her sister anymore, as they all had become people of their own.

 

If she could succeed from the hivemind, she would be alright. At the current moment, however, there was nothing she wanted to do more than dye her hair. It was unfair that all her sister had chosen the ‘cool’ normal hair colors. The way she was looking at Kitty, suggested otherwise though.

 

“What are _you_ thinking about?” Kitty asked, noting that Esme’s eyes were wandering off her, and onto someplace else.

 

Now she understood why Hank wanted to deal with Esme first. She was a lot more troublesome, due to her careful manipulation of the mood and her body language.

 

“I want to dye my hair.” Esme answered truthfully. “I would like to change it like my sisters.”

 

Sisters sounded like an odd word to Esme.

 

“Really?”

 

“I don’t know what hair color, though. I always wanted to stand out among my sisters.” Esme tucked a blonde strand behind her ear. “I don’t want to just be part of the crowd.”

 

“Hmm.”

 

Kitty understood what it was to feel invisible, like she was drowning in a sea for people and not being noticed. That finalized her decision. Esme did not speak.

 

“Now that you’re legally alive again, Esme.” Kitty shifted her gaze to the paper in front of her. “I’d like to make you a proposition.”

 

Esme quirked her eyebrow, and leaned forward. “What is it?”

 

“Unlike your sisters, you have very little world experience, it would be cruel to send you into the world untrained.” Kitty offered a sharp look, but a soft smile. “I would like you to be my sort of prodigy. I think it would help you catch up on the years you lost.”

 

“You are not a telepath, if I remember correctly.”

 

“No, but my girlfriend is.” Informal, Kitty wanted to connect with Esme, the way Emma once did with her. She wanted to prove to herself that Emma was not inherently evil, it was her environment that made her evil. Esme could still become good and flourish underneath the correct conditions.

 

A hydrangea could bloom to be either blue or pink, it always depended on the soil it was provided.

 

“Are you taking me on as your underling alone or is it a five for one deal, Miss Pryde?” To Esme being tutored by Rachel Grey was something she was greatly interested in. If Esme recalled correctly, she was an extremely powerful telepath and a telekinetic legend. Being her pupil would allow her to excel faster than her sisters, or at least catch up with them faster.

 

“Only you. Of course, you’ll be working with me and training with me directly. Miss Grey would just give you supplemental lessons on using your telepathy. From what I’ve heard of your adventures though, Esme, you’ve already mastered the ability given to you.” And she had heard a lot about Esme’s general misconduct and misuse of her powers. But that was in the Xavier institute, under Charles’ terrible management. This school would be a tightly run ship, and there would be no death under Kitty’s leadership. She refused that.

 

“I have a reputation that precedes me, even in death it seems.”  Esme extended her hand so that Kitty could shake it. “If it’s only me, I’d be happy to be taken under your wing.”

 

Kitty smiled, and shook her hand. “Of course, just you and me.”

 

“Miss Pryde, I promise I won’t disappoint... But...What about Sophie? What’s the plan with her since she is also behind on her studies?” Esme wasn’t sure if she was speaking out of line. Sophie had not shared any information with her, and Esme was sure it wasn’t private or top-secret.

 

“She wants to work more on the academic side of things until Emma comes back.” Kitty wasn’t sure if Emma would ever return to the institute, especially after Scott’s death. There was nothing for her at the institute. However, all her old students were still in the school, there were all waiting for her to come back, especially those who joined after the Xavier School was dissolved.

 

“She told me she wanted to work on getting her diploma. If she wishes, she can switch back to the Jean Grey’s School’s regular programs anytime she wants.”  Kitty was not sure why Sophie had done that, but suspected it had something to do with her sister, Phoebe, applying to medical schools in the East Coast.

 

Sophie wanted more than anything to be a hero, but perhaps she thought she wasn’t ready to martyr herself for an unknown cause. The X-Men, all of them, weren’t sure where they stood, whether these days they should follow Xavier’s dream or Magento’s dream. They were both correct, but there wasn’t a unified position, all the mutants really wanted to do was survive.

 

Esme did not find it odd that Sophie wanted to study rather than train her mutation. What Sophie lacked in experience and training, she would make up with in brute force. She crossed her arms across her chest.

 

“Will I be taking classes?”

 

“Probably.” Kitty replied. “I’ll get back to you at the end of the week, with a proper schedule.”

 

“Can I ask another question?”

 

“Anything, but be warned I’m off the clock as of right now. You and the rest of your sisters took up most of my day.” She looked at the clock hanging behind Esme, as the clock struck four-thirty. As headmaster, she was never really off, but her official office hours were.

 

Esme paused before she spoke. “Could you tell me about a store or place where I could buy some hair dye? I want, no I need something new. I can’t look like just another clone.”

 

Kitty covered her mouth to cover up her laugh. She could never really understand why the Cuckoos wanted to differentiate themselves but never succeed from each other. From what she had heard, it would be easy for them to do that. But maybe there was comfort in knowing each other’s thoughts all the time. There was a comfort in being crowded.

 

Kitty scribbled something down on a piece of paper and then reached into her wallet, and pulled out two twenty dollar bills.

 

“I’m sure Frost won’t mind reimbursing me for this.” She pushed the paper towards Esme. “Tell them Kitty Pryde sent you.”

 

Esme took the paper and read what Kitty has scribbled down in her neat cursive handwriting. It was an address for a place in the Midtown area. Esme tilted her head as a form of thanks.

 

Esme started to get up, unfolding her legs from underneath her and walking towards the door.

 

“One more thing.”

 

Esme turned her head, with ears open to her new mentor.

 

“You’d look wonderful with blue hair.”

 

Esme nodded, and then left Kitty’s office.

 

Kitty, now finally alone after dealing with five sisters, pulled out her cell phone and started a call.

 

“Hey, Rachel…”

 

The door clicked shut.

 

Esme, now on the other side, looked at the paper in her hands. She tucked away the money in the pocket of her black velvet skirt. She thought for a moment whether today was a good day for her to leave the school without telling her sister.

 

She didn’t want to go alone, as she was unfamiliar with the city, but she didn’t have any friends. The rest of the hivemind, Sophie mostly, were still suspicious of her intentions. She was deceitful before. Esme wasn’t interested in proving herself to her sisters, because they would have to put up with her regardless of what she wanted to do. Or at least she hoped. Being kicked out of the hivemind would be troublesome.

 

With a sharp breath, Esme decided that she was going to go back to her dormitory and then maybe decide to go to the store by herself. However, her thought process, and her checklisting was distracted when she was hit in the back by something.

 

“ _Ow_.”

 

Esme fell to the floor from just hard she was hit and heard something crash in front of her, flung forward by the force. Her eyes were still to the floor.  There was a sound of broken glass, and a buzzing was above her.

 

“Pixie, I told you to watch out.” Jia yelled, and landed on her feet in front of Esme, much to her dismay that her friend had just crashed in front of her. Her bright blue mosaic wings kept fluttering when she walked. A nervous tic, Esme noted.

 

“I’m fine, Sprite.” Megan laughed it off like it was nothing. But she was obviously injured due to the fact that she had crash landed into some glass, a cut on her leg. She was going much faster than she usually did. Her translucent yet pink wings fluttered. She took Jia’s hands, to pull herself up.

 

She noticed what she had crashed into, it wasn’t a wall or a table, it was one of the Cuckoos. Esme was still on the ground, trying to collect her fractured thoughts, not even attempting to get up.

 

“Oh! Celeste! I’m so sorry!” Megan said, rushing to the aid of Esme, who groaned when she was misnamed. Jia followed her, buzzing in the air, choosing to not walk. Megan leaned down next to Esme, and began to help her up.

 

“Not Celeste.” Esme responded with a bitter tone, but still accepted the help from Megan.  “I’m Esme.” She finally looked up, Megan was awkwardly smiling at her, Jia awkwardly hovering behind her.

 

 _Obviously_ both of them were embarrassed. Esme however was more interested in Megan’s bright pink hair and sharp features than the fact that she had just barreled into her at an alarming speed.

 

“Sorry, you all look a lot alike!” Jia exclaimed, clasping both of her hands together. “Usually we use your hair to tell you guys apart!”

 

“We should take you to the infirmary.” Megan smiled, and then helped Esme stand up straight, then looked back at Jia. “Do you know where it is?”

 

“No, I don’t think so. I’ve only been back a few days, everything is still somewhat new to me.”

 

“Jia, go tell Phoebe she has two incoming patients.” Jia nodded, and tilted her head downwards. “I’ll see you there.”

 

Jia fluttered her wings and flew away, leaving Esme in the arms of Megan.

 

“No it’s fine, I’m not hurt.” Esme did not want to see her sister, especially for such a small injury. They’d all think she was a child who never grew up. They would be right, considering existing in astral plane hell did not allow her to grow. She had matured a little more than expected, but she wasn’t able to make the connections everyone else did.

 

“A check up won’t hurt either.”

 

Esme looked at Megan, with the small cut on her forehead due to falling face first in the glass. It was bleeding slightly. Megan’s smile made Esme’s lips curl too, she was capable of empathy, and the friendliness was radiating out of Megan.

 

“Alright, let’s go.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'm @[diamondsynth](http://diamondsynth.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!


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